So I used to write little film reviews for fun on my Instagram when I first got a Cineworld unlimited card. After the past 2 years of barely any visits to my favourite place in the world, I’m determined to make the most out of it this year, and with plenty of big films slated to come out this year, I’m very excited! So if you want yet another bunch of reviews from an underqualified blog writer, you’re in the right place!
May update: I started at a new job that demands a lot of time and effort to be successful (and even at that there is no guarantee). I’ve spent 90% of my online time on LinkedIn and worked in some capacity every day for the last month. The cinema has really helped me decompress.
Many questions were raised by this: “Did I really pay that little attention to Hamlet in uni?”, “Who does Skarsgård think he is being so ripped at 45?” and “Is that Valkyrie wearing braces?”
These are the questions that need answers people! That aside, I wasn’t a particular fan of Eggers’ previous work, though I respect him deeply for it. The Northman has changed that somewhat.
While the operation to get fake documents into Hitlers hands is incredibly interesting in its own right, there’s not enough of it to fill a feature-length runtime. Throw in a completely unsatisfying love triangle for seemingly no reason or payoff to kill time and some workplace politics thrown in as a fluffer and you have this film. Perfectly adequate, and nothing more.
I had no expectation of this being good. I worried that it would be a cash grab on Nicholas Cage’s other-the-top performances that have made him a cultural icon over the past two decades. Instead, I got a genuinely funny, caring, and actually good film. Pedro Pascal and Nicholas Cage make one of the best on screen duos I’ve seen in a long time. The pair oozed charisma and joy in the parts they are playing, perhaps that comes from the meta aspect of the role, or the freedom to embrace the fun side of acting. Either way, really loved it.
If you haven’t seen this film. Don’t read anything about it, don’t watch the trailer or check the wiki. Just go and see it. It’s absolutely wild in the best way, playing with the idea of the metaverse in far more interesting ways than anything else I’ve ever seen before. It is also a movie made for the cinema and I 100% plan to go and put myself through the emotional rollercoaster that is this film again before it leaves cinemas for good. It was so good, that I forgot I was sitting behind my favourite comedian, Frankie Boyle.
I hadn’t watched Wandavision, so perhaps there were aspects of this film that were lost on me, but really, this felt like standard metaverse fair. Indeed, we are now entering the era where multidimensional plots are so common, that they can be average. Being a Marvel film, there were some great moments and really interesting ways to progress the plot, but in the same breath, it must be said, that this is a Marvel film, and therefore will hit the same beats as others. To many, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, to others, its the worst thing in cinema. While I enjoyed it, I doubt many will be discussing Strange’s second solo outing as a defining film in the MCU.
Richard Mooney 